small business

Cloud computing is coming to small business, and it brings benefits in terms of price and stability. A number of different services, necessary for running a small business, can run as a hosted (cloud) service. We explore the issue in an exclusive Q&A with Scott Kinka, Senior Vice President at EvolveIP.

Idea Cafe: What is the cloud and how can it help small businesses? What types of services run in the cloud?

An optimistic outlook towards the economy prevailed among small business owners in March, according to a study by online payroll service SurePayroll. In the same time, salaries dropped 0.89 percent in one month. The survey was completed on March 30th and consisted of 234 respondents randomly selected from the 25,000 small businesses.

As we’ve reported previously, the government is concentrating on securing loans for small business. Steve Kaplan—an entrepreneur and Wall Street Journal bestselling author—presents all of the steps necessary to get a small business loan in his upcoming book Sell Your Business For the Max.

The good news keeps on coming...and we owe it all to you! Thanks to Idea Café and our winning their “Innovation & Originality Grant” in January, the interest level in WOMbeat! continues to rise. Just this past week, we learned that WOMbeat! founder, Linda Olson, was honored as one of the “Tampa Bay 100” by Tampa Bay CEO Magazine. You can read the full story here if you like.

Are you one of those business owners who continue to resist “the pressure” from well-meaning friends and peers to join LinkedIn? Maybe you actually signed up once, but are you having a hard time find any value in it? If this sounds like you, you are not alone…but you may be missing out on a very powerful tool. WOMbeat! owes much of its early growth to LinkedIn , so let me share a few of the pearls I found in Linkedin.

Never need to lookup a phone number again

As a business owner, one of your first decisions is the name of your company/product/service. It is, after all, your corporate identity. There is nothing worse than being forced to change your name once you have begun doing business because of a cease and desist letter or an application refusal from the US Patent and Trademark Office. The first plan of action: do not get attached to your trademark until it is yours officially.

Here are a few best practices in finding that name:

So far, 2009 has been just an amazing year. After winning the Idea Café’s “Innovation & Originality Grant,” we continue to be blessed with so much good news and press. Not only did we make a guest appearance on the CEO Lounge (listen to the program here) in January, but we were also selected to present at Startup Riot 2009 last month in Atlanta, GA (the only company from Florida and the only female presenter selected!).

In this article, business expert Rick Segel shares advice for maximizing your customers.

Downward slanting sales. Check. A depleted customer base. Check. Constant stress, worry, and handwringing. Check, Check, Check! If these symptoms are all too familiar, then it’s likely your store is suffering from Recessionitis, a disease plaguing many good-intentioned retailers just like you. Thankfully, there is a cure. And international retail expert Rick Segel has the prescription: Start maximizing your customers at every opportunity throughout the recession and beyond.

The latest American Express OPEN Economic Pulse survey shows that entrepreneurial fear and uncertainty reached a peak in October last year, amidst significant stock market slides. Since then, expectations have somewhat improved: fewer small business owners express worry about going out of business, and more expect to grow their businesses regardless of the economic climate. So much for doom and gloom?

Some other findings from the survey:

• Fewer businesses have been affected by the tightening of credit (50% in August 08, 63% in October 08 and 56% in January 09)

First of all, let me say how excited we here at WOMbeat! still are over the Idea Café “Innovation & Originality Grant” win. Not only did this win help us see a tremendous growth in traffic to our site, but we continue to get more coverage because of it. In fact, last week we were one of the guests on a talk-radio program called the Ceo Lounge. Listen for yourself here